Reverse Cinderella
by Namida-sama
Summary: Vaughn is Chelsea's childhood best friend, although they've grown apart and don't speak or see each other any more. When their two noble families align to make her marry his brother, Will, as per an ancient tradition, Vaughn comes out of hiding. After all, it was only because he couldn't stand the thought of having her in his family that he agreed to get her out of it.
1. Chapter 1

Reverse Cinderella

I don't own Harvest moon or any related terms, characters, or settings.

Another new conquest. Probably shouldn't have even started or posted this, cause I'm slacking enough on A Stranger Kind of Empathy already. It's a bit cliché, I'll admit it, but I felt like I could make it work if I manipulated it enough... Eh. Not particularly happy with this chapter, as first chapters go, and will probably rewrite it later, but I enjoyed writing about childhood summers nonetheless.

Review, por favor. I want to improve this one, and you can only give yourself so much criticism before someone labels you with some kind of super-uptight perfectionistic mental malfunction. Save me from that sad fate, readers! There's not much indication of plot or foreshadowing yet. I wanna ease into it.

* * *

A little chestnut-haired Sutton girl, age eight at most, crosses the forest line, taking the worn-dirt trail that winds past the stump, walking quickly and slapping at the copious dead-of-summer mosquitos that touch down on her exposed arms, legs. Mini-vampires buzz and hum around her ears as she walks faster still, evolving into a jog as she struggles to get away from their vicious intentions. Vaughn's waiting for her there, at the edge of the forest. He sits, legs stretched out- a true buffet for the horde of nasty demon-bugs she's led in- in front of the raspberry brambles and picks the ones he deems ripe, cringing at the bitter-sour ones and crushing the tiny seeds patiently between his new molars.

He glances up at her when she arrives, the golden almost-evening light painting his eyes a violet-periwinkle she can't help but compare to flowers; they're that beautiful. He would deny it; say that her little metaphor was girly, so she doesn't tell him. She won't inform him that the sunset makes his silvery hair look like snow on fire, either. Instead, Chelsea plops down in the cool, long grass at the edge of the Sutton-White property line-forest and asks "Any good ones?"

"None left," he replies, tossing another of the 'good ones' into his mouth nonchalantly, not bothering to hide his handful of them, which are bleeding juice onto his pants, making a drooly, sticky fruit-stain.

She crosses her brush-scratched, mud-streaked calves and leans back, relaxed in her loose tank top and jean shorts.

Vaughn's a bit older than her, almost eleven to counter her seven-and-three-quarters, and he was born right at the beginning of spring, and he'll never, _ever_ let her forget who's the oldest, and to always respect her elders.

Besides the age difference, who else was going to teach her how to spit and ride a horse and catch a barn mouse or look for snakes and catch frogs in the creek? There was only cousin Will, and he was too polite and prissy to teach Chelsea anything good, anyway. Also, they had already sworn a very sacred pact of friendship, an oath more unbreakable than Spit-deals or Pinkie-swears: the Middle-Finger Friendship Swear. Honestly, Chelsea didn't see the point of anything else. Everyone knew pinkies didn't really swear, not like that terrible, deliciously tempting, forbidden Middle finger did. And the spit-deal was just gross. That was for boys.

No, they spend their time adventuring, pretending to be explorers (even though they know the small stand of trees and long grass like they know their own candy preferences, so well they've almost single-handedly forged beaten-dirt paths through the trees and grass) in the woods between the two noble houses. Sometimes they wander between the trees, hunting for berries, flowers and leaves to make their carefully-hidden fort cooler. The best stuff is always by the creek, long, braidable reeds and grasses that tie things up and suspend decorations and new platforms. They already have a shelf full of little bark bowls with raspberries and water bottles, too.

Vaughn aims to spend the _entire _night there one summer. Chelsea doesn't think it'll be this one, though. August is winding down pretty quick already, the season having vanished quicker than Chelsea's freedom after her mother once discovered a smashed vase she had tried to hide.

When it rains, they brought the good times inside, playing hide-and-seek in one of the manors. Chelsea, abiding by the rules, hid mostly in wardrobes amid the heavy wool and cotton winterwear; the solid, fabric-scented darkness and insulated, isolated silence comforted her. Vaughn often found her asleep, curled up between racks of overcoats. He always twists the rules, though, and hides with the horsies and kittens in the barn or stable, hoping to avoid her scolding for breaking the solemn laws of Hide-and-seek by distracting her with fur and cute faces.

The night's almost perfect for kids, a cool, fragrant sort of evening where the dying light was as golden as honey and the shadows were long and dark; a drowsy, supplicating evening- perfect for any half-decent adventurer's explorations. All the frogs and little animals come out around now, a worthwhile undertaking if you can stand the bugs. Sometimes they even saw bats fluttering around, just waking up in time to feast on the creek's spawn, the mosquitos and blackflies.

Chelsea sits back, lays her head in the grass as she holds up a wrist to examine a speck of an ant traveling up her knuckles and over her fingers. The sky is just beginning to truly darken, the painful-to-look-at crimson of the horizon's middle staining the canvas infrared, pink, peach and navy around the edges. The dying sun silhouettes the drifting smudge-wisps of cloud in dark gray-purple as rabbits and squirrels move in the thicket of the woods, preparing for their habitual early sleep. She contemplates the ant for a little longer, using her wrist to block the intense dusk-sunlight from her azure eyes before flicking it off into the grassy jungle. She closes her eyes, breathing in the dry, dusty but mossy late summer smell. It's the smell of countless summers before this one, countless kids who've played in a forest by a creek with a friend. It's the smell of frog, the pungent, boggy algae aroma (a very acquired-taste sort of perfume), the smell of Popsicles and lemonade and campfires, ozone and thunderstorms and past June-July humidity.

Bliss.

She's pleasantly warm now, feeling heavy and lazy as her eyes begin to droop, long since given up on destroying all the mosquitos that feast on her skin.

"Promise you'll never forget me, Vaughn?"

* * *

Chelsea doesn't hear his answer that day, and it slips from her mind like helium from an untied balloon as the years begin to race past. There are too many memories for her possibly keep them all now, and those phantasmagorical summers became fewer and further between until they stopped. Chelsea, deep in teenagedom, prefers to stay inside rather than in the muggy heat of the outside world, and she doesn't see him much anymore. She gradually stops thinking about him altogether, packing him in a box deep within her mind.

And so the sworn best friends lose contact, having drifted apart by the base mechanics of their very different lives.

But it had occurred to her that Vaughn had never actually slept in the fort, the tiny one in the woods made of sticks and thatched grass and mud-plaster that was long-since destroyed by the wear of the rain and wind, and the motions of the animals in the little woods, living their lives.


	2. Chapter 2

Reverse Cinderella 2

This hasn't gotten much reception (thanks so much for those of you that did, in face, review and story-alert, etc), so I shall post this and then take the whole damn thing down. Think it through a bit more, maybe. But I'll definitely be doing a Chelsea/Vaughn someday.

I don't own harvest moon. Or any characters. They ALL belong to Natsume inc.

* * *

Chelsea sprawls out across her bed, a tiny single-sized affair- red, with a gold fleur-de-lis print comforter. The family colours. She stares at the white plaster ceiling, then out the window, feeling the air conditioning freeze her face slowly. She's in a hating mood.

She hates the view, hates the cropped, immaculate lawns and the white-uniformed staff who are hard at work primping the gardens, who address her as 'Mistress' and never look her in the eye. She can't even see the forest from here, and although it holds some rather awkward and uncomfortable memories of her former friend, Chelsea still loves its cool, damp earth-smell and occasionally wades in the creek when even the air conditioning can't break her restless moods.

There's _another_ banquet tonight, with the Whites, to discuss her marriage. It starts in two hours, and Chelsea has sent every maid away, yet to even pick out a dress (which should take her a good hour, anyway).

Who got married at _seventeen_ in this day-and-age, anyway?

Vaughn doesn't like the summer much, doesn't even like the barn in summer. The animals are sweaty and cranky; the flies gather around the shit and soiled hay in droves. It makes him feel out-of-sorts. He doesn't know how to fill the long, lazy days anymore, other than avoiding the Whites and tending the animals.

He lifts a forkful of shitty bedding, puts it in the soiled bin. Sweat trickles through his hair, and he hates the feeling the wet on his scalp. There's a storm on the horizon, and he ceases his work and leans on the pitchfork, running dusty, blistered fingers through silvery hair and contemplating the monolithic thunderheads.

Deep Blue-gray, they seem to loom from the humid haze of wispy, heavy clouds, as threatening as a foreclosure notice. The horses are a little skittish, the barncats gone to hide in the hayloft, curled around their new, fuzzy, stumbling young. The birds are nestled in the sturdier shade-trees, singing their frantic storm-calls, back and forth to their brethren in other trees.

"This ain't gonna be no spring-shower," He says to the horses and himself, adding an authentic cowboy accent for good measure. One of the mares, a little chestnut thing, blows through her lips at him, eyes flicking around nervously, and stamps her feet, shifting loose bits of straw around with her hooves.

Maliciously, Vaughn wishes that the storm would take out the power just in time for the (likely god-awful) banquet.

He leans the pitchfork in its place next to a barrel full of water, flies and bugs floating serenely on the top. Even though he runs, He only makes it halfway to White Manor before the rain starts, the torrential, pounding kind that made his light summer clothes cling to him like a second skin. Drumrolls of thunder sound distantly.

A maid, standing idly at her post, has the gall to look disgusted as he sweeps into the foyer at a dead sprint, soaked and muddy.

Vaughn takes the towel she holds out and sneers half-heartedly in return. It's dark as dusk outside, lightning clarifying the ridges in the clouds every so often, the bursts of luminescence adding a horror-movie effect to the bustling rooms.

He slinks upstairs; totally prepared to hide away in the attic should Regis or Sabrina try to force him into a suit. Childish? Perhaps. But it was better than having to sit across from Chelsea and Sabrina and watch all the important business-guests gush their empty praise all over them like overfilled creampuffs. Disgusting.

He's almost glad he was adopted. He'd be marrying Chelsea if he wasn't.

Vaughn traipses through the little rooms of the old-fashioned manor, ducking his head through some of the original doorways that haven't been replaced. Sutton manor has too many rooms to count, big as any luxury hotel, but they're small. All of them, except maybe the greenhouse and the lonely old observatory, which was separate from the main house anyway.

He'd rather live in the stables, among the horses and the barn-swallows.

Eventually, one of the braver maids catches him, shoves him into a suit and drags him down to the dining room. The walls are cream, the windows arching and opulent. The accents were deep blue, adorned with the silver White family crest.

Vaughn sits, folds the napkin into his lap, and tries his best not to scowl. Mark, Chelsea's younger brother, is making eyes at Sabrina. He's brought her blue flowers that match her dress. She blushes beneath her glasses when he catches her eyes. Disgusting.

As the last course is served (fresh berries and poached pears with cream), and the meal draws to a close, Regis motions to Chelsea's parents, the Suttons, and they all stand. He taps his crystal wine glass delicately with a pewter dessert spoon, and begins his announcement, grinning from beneath his greasy moustache.

"We have gathered here today to announce the engagement of the firstborn children of the Sutton and White families, as per tradition. May Chelsea Sutton and William White have the first dance to celebrate their upcoming nuptials."

Chelsea's powdered face has gone an interesting mixture of ashy gray and dark red, and she stands, across from Will in her flowing red dress (she feels, suddenly, so uncomfortable in it, although it's her favorite). they meet in the centre of the ballroom, leading the procession of moguls and close family friends, kings and princes of society, all with beautiful trophy-women dangling from their fattened arms like bracelets.

Will bows and she curtsies as the chamber orchestra begins to play a slow, romantic waltz.

She looks embarrassed, and can't look her partner in the face, so she scans the crowd. Chelsea happens to catch the jewel-tone violet of Vaughn's eyes. They look almost brown at this distance, with the dim lighting and the grimace he's giving her. His old friend Amir is standing beside him, a fluted glass of champagne (generously filled) in his hand. He's as stoic and regal as ever, his accompaniment to the dinner off wandering somewhere. Chelsea remembers her as a jittery young blond thing, a woman unaccustomed to the lifestyle exhibited at these kinds of banquets. She spots the short straw-blond hair bobbing above a plum-purple sheath dress at the refreshment table, nibbling on imported fruit or some such delight. Will spins her again, and Chelsea follows through effortlessly, letting him lead, but he can see her heart isn't in it. She's melancholy tonight, and the you-just-killed-and-ate-my-new-puppy glare Vaughn is shooting her from across the room isn't helping. Outside, thunder roars, grumbles. The lightning is stunning in the dimly lit ballroom when it appears, washing the painted faces of the ladies in instant, blinding white like a camera flash.

* * *

My updating schedule should be a little weird this summer. I'm off school but will be traveling some, so expect multiple updates in short, infrequent bursts.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I do not own Harvest moon or Tetris. And I have nothing against trophy wives.

Thanks so much for the reviews and alerts and favourites, readers. (I always feel like I have to deliver if you readers are expecting, you know?)

* * *

Will spins Chelsea a final time, right in the center of the elegant mosaic-tiled dancefloor (She thinks it's overkill to part right under the spotlight, too frivolous and dramatic), and their waltz ends. She strolls to the refreshment table (trying to make it seem as if she's not escaping) and picks up a crème-caramel, bathing in sauce on its little dish. She makes sure to avoid the gazes of the other partygoers.

Chelsea picks off the mint-leaf garnish, cuts a bite with her spoon. The soft custard yields easily in her mouth, but she can barely taste the delicate milk and caramel flavour. She wants to stop thinking, but she can't. New thoughts pile into her head and stack up like some horrid game of Tetris, and she thinks, _this is all fake. Everything in the room is fake and Will is fake and my upcoming engagement and goddamn marriage is fake._ Chelsea wishes that she'd wake up as someone else the next day, free of drama, free of stupid parties where she's seen and not heard and free of Will.

It isn't that she hates Will; that isn't it at all. He's pleasant and polite, and manages to pull the 'prince-charming' persona practically without effort. Will has been the perfect gentleman since he was still shitting in his diapers; it's become as natural to him as breathing.

Chelsea is just deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of waking up every day next to him, having his kids... They are lukewarm acquaintances, despite having grown up together.

Technically, they are cousins. Chelsea sees nothing but wrong in the arrangement, but she's already signed the contract, the copy of the ancient document that binds the two families together, the one that dictates that the firstborn Sutton must marry the firstborn White of the opposite gender, the second-born must marry the second-born, and so on. She wants to burn it, but it is her 'duty as the firstborn'. Her parents had forced her hand from the tender age of eleven, where her prince-on-a-white-horse fantasies were at their height. They hadn't explicitly signed in her stead or really even forced her; it had been a matter of manipulation, so she couldn't exactly search out a legal loophole. As much as they do behind-the-scenes regarding her marriage, she loves her family; she has no wish to be disowned.

Chelsea had discussed it with Mark, her little brother. She still tries to, occasionally, when he's in a good mood, but her blond brat of a brother will have none. He sees nothing amiss with the tradition, the contract, sees nothing wrong with the fact that he's going to be married to his close cousin in a few years. Mark is blind and deaf in his love for Sabrina. Chelsea always knew they were in pretty deep.

Vaughn's staring at her again, and every time she looks at him, Chelsea can't help but feel wistful. He brings fond memories of puddle-jumping and grass soup-making, of sunburns and dusty summers, the crunch of leaves and taste of apples, spice and pumpkin. Vaughn reminds her especially of the bleak winter nights of stargazing and the smell of woodsmoke and hot chocolate, the feel of wool against her neck and chin, damp with the puffing white clouds of child-breath. They're good memories, great ones that Chelsea wishes she could relive, but they never fail to make her chest ache and her throat clamp up.

She wonders what she did back then, what went wrong. The look he's shooting her from across the dance floor is not one that's typically reserved for beloved childhood friends. It's some _delightful_ mix of poisonous and accusatory, and it puts Chelsea off her half-finished dessert, the custard wobbling stickily as she goes to put the plate in the kitchens. She needs a walk. She needs to stop thinking of Vaughn.

When she returns, he is gone, and Amir is twirling some fancy young thing in a trailing sage-green strapless number around, a charming white smile plastered on his face.

A row of richly-adorned old birds sit on the red couches and sigh, sipping fine wines and champagne. Jewelry, copious and chunky in the way only old ladies' jewelry is, drips off their wrists, fingers, into their bosoms. The prince's escort, a foreign-looking eastern girl in a lovely oriental-fusion dress stands forgotten against the wall, inspecting the paintings. She doesn't appear to mind that Amir isn't exclusive tonight, and is in fact ignoring him completely, absorbed in the luxurious artifacts of the room. Chelsea wants to ask, _what's your secret?_

But then she realizes that the woman is probably an important court lady who has decided to accompany with Amir for the sake of appearances. Chelsea's wishful thinking dies a swift death in her head.

Vaughn hates parties. Hated the cheap beer-and-pot get-togethers of his highschool days and detests the fancy dinner-and-dancing shindigs his family puts on now just as much.

He hates seeing all the trophy wives just milling about at the formal bash he was at. You could practically see their whole lifecycle at gatherings like these, like the development of caterpillars to butterflies.

They started out as slim and young, fresh, supple heiresses and rich girls. It never mattered how ugly their husbands grew, how pot-bellied and red-faced they became. Their female counterparts were botoxed and starved, sometimes even went under the knife to cease the advance of ugliness, but they ended up mostly the same. They slowly declined (like unchecked cancer victims) until they are desperate to stop their aging, by then chicken-necked and too-tan, their overthin limbs and bodies going from full and elegant to droopy or bandy, wiry.

Vaughn finds them disgusting. Weak, without strength, simply floating around and keeping up appearances. Just like butterflies. Chelsea is in the first stage of this disease, soon to be married off to his little brother Will, to become a smiling, waving bimbo. He finds it to be a bit of a shame, remembering her as a strong and bright girl with boundless energy.

_No_, he thinks, staring at Chelsea in her flouncy blue dress, _it really is a waste._

Not like he'd ever say that to her face, though.

* * *

Ugh… it's so short. Even shorter than usual. I think I'll merge the chapters of my projects once I finish them. Better to have twenty longer chapters than forty really short ones. This one is sort of important, and even though it's Chelsea being angsty and Vaughn bitching about everything, there is a mention of a vital part somewhere…

I'm having writer's constipation! I've got an overflow of good multi-chapter ideas, but no time to update them all (I'm struggling with four... HIATUS TIME!). Recently, when I go to write a chapter, it never flows like it sometimes does; the words and ideas just don't connect like they should. Drafts frustrate me beyond belief.

Question: what are some things you hate to see when you read other people's fanfiction?

I'd say that mine are author's notes in the middle of the story and 'sweatdropping'. Seriously. Also when people describe eyes as 'orbs'. I don't really know why that bugs me.

Well, I guess I had better just finish this story. It's a bloody pain having it just stagnating on my profile. It makes me feel guilty about not updating :/.


	4. Chapter 4

Reverse Cinderella

Chapter 4

I always forget the freaking disclaimer. I do not own harvest moon or any related terms, characters, locations, etc, etc. Thank you for your support! Sorry for the short chapter…again.

* * *

Amir watches Vaughn as he stares at Chelsea, eating some lavish dessert on a velvet couch across the room, and blushes to the roots of his silvery hair. Idly, he twirls the fancy wine in its modern, clear-crystal glass, mindful of his suit, and wonders (a little bit obscenely) what his old friend is thinking of that's making him turn so red. His companion, lily, having returned from scoping out the manor's valuables, asks him to get her another glass of wine, and leans so close to him that he can smell her jasmine soap beneath the smattering of seductive, expensive perfume she's applied (sparsely; mustn't overwhelm) and still under the soap he can smell her natural scent, a sweetish, deep, feminine scent. He smiles her a lazy smile that has won awards in trashy magazines, and heads in the direction of the refreshment table, on his quest for quality alcohol.

Even with his back turned, he can feel Vaughn's eyes on him. His old friend knows of the pretty little flower Amir's visiting in the little vacation hamlet he visits every year and thinks he's being unfaithful. But Vaughn always has been as loyal as a dog. A stupid dog. Amir believes in back-up plans.

Normally, Sabrina's company is tolerable and decent (she is sorely lacking as a conversationalist, sadly) but this evening the younger girl is downright clingy. She sticks to Chelsea's side like a barnacle, clutching onto her blue dress and hiding like a child behind her, giggling as she avoids Chelsea's idiot brother, Mark. Apparently they've become sweet on each other, somehow. She thinks their blushing, giggling games are irritating and sickening.

She glances around and just happens to catch Will's gaze, who flashes her a smile. Chelsea turns her head around and pretends not to have noticed. It makes her uncomfortable. She can't read him well. She wishes he were more like Vaughn (or like Vaughn as a child) whose thoughts are generally broadcasted across his face. Chelsea catches his peculiar silver hair out of the corner of her eye, and sure enough, he's thinking about something embarrassing or inappropriate.

When she checks again to see if it's safe, Will is standing around looking rather comfortable with the prince's escort. She doesn't particularly mind, except for that most of the manor will be gossiping about love triangles come the next day. A huge bother.

She almost wants to run off to the old stables, just for old-times' sake, just so she can see Vaughn as a scruffy ten-year-old again whose clothes are baggy and whose face is marked with dirt, brushing the ponies.

Sabrina switches topics for about the fourteenth time in a rather one-sided conversation she expects Chelsea to be listening to. She wonders quite nastily whether Sabrina has the brains to realize when she's being ignored, but feels guilty immediately after and gives herself a little mental wrist-slap.

She excuses herself to go the washroom, grinning charmingly at all the old investors and young escorts, predetermined heiress 'girlfriends', and hapless little Sabrina.

They've nearly grown up together, but Chelsea can't stand to be in her mire of adolescent hormones and unrequited loves, secret tales of pimples conquered and celebrity magazines smuggled under coats past her father. Sabrina's general teenage miasma of drama is too much to bear for long periods.

Chelsea supposes she shouldn't be one to judge. Her little 'phase' was more-or-less the same.

She rises from her seat, unfolding her cornflower-blue skirts from under her, and glides off, heels clicking on the marble, to the powder-room. The _upstairs _powder-room, where, with a bit of luck, she might even get some privacy.

She sits in a dusty old armchair in the hall, having finished her powder-room business, reading half-heartedly a battered novel she's found in a side-table. It's probably some forgotten relic of Sabrina's.

It's a sappy romance, one about tall dark foreign strangers who turn out to be princes and CEOs. Chelsea wants to inform the author that _real_ tall dark princes and CEOs aren't at all as loveable as they seem.

The city is most beautiful at night from these windows, which take up large portions of the pristine white hallways. She stares out at the distant little lights and their firefly-like glow that illuminates the thick, low clouds on the horizon dimly. The effect of the light on the clouds makes them look a bit like billowing smoke to her. She can't see the stars, which are ordinarily a source of comfort for her.

The giggling reaches her ears first, then the tap tap tap of fancy women's shoes. She hears high voices, then a low reply in a familiar gruff, short tone.

These hallways are private and rarely used, exactly why Chelsea's seeking refuge in them. They only lead to the bedrooms. She sinks into the armchair and holds her breath, tries to erase herself.

It's Vaughn and a surprisingly large entourage of well-dressed women from the downstairs party. They've had one too many drinks and are now rather shamefully intoxicated.

They can barely follow him as they prance down the passage, weak and bowlegged in their high shoes and confining dresses. Some dance to inaudible music. One abandons her stole in the middle of the floor, a shimmery, silky white thing that seems like it's barely there, woven from diamond clouds.

Vaughn doesn't notice her, just walks off along the corridor, slouching with his hands in his pockets, ignoring the ladies gambolling about him.

As soon as they're out of sight and earshot, Chelsea grabs up the shawl and shoves it down into the little purse she's brought along, a rather unpractical thing purely for accessorizing.

Her heart pounds hard. She's sure he's seen her.

Chelsea doesn't understand herself. She doesn't like it when Will talks to other women, although she'd be fine to not marry him in the first place, but she thinks of Vaughn often. Too often for her liking. They don't ever really talk, but she is entirely overwhelmed by memories, swept away by the good ol days. And when she saw him sauntering down the hall in his striking black suit and red tie with those ladies... it's a free country, he is allowed to walk with women, but Chelsea still wants to tether him to her, to ensure that they stay the same forever, that they'll never go away.

She wants her world to be forever young.

* * *

I accidentally deleted my favourite bit of this chapter, the beginning. Retyping parts that were originally not in need of (much) improvement sucks. I feel like this chapter is disorganized, and it doesn't particularly fit in with my plans, although there are some important bits.


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